Analysis on Tap Dance and Jazz Dance, Essay Example

The dance vernacular has a tremendous variety of styles, with possibilities to learn from each and every one of them about a culture and a form of expression. Two types of dances that have come to be very well-known in the world we live in today are tap dance and jazz dance. Both dances have grown in popularity over the years, although jazz has seen a much greater exponential increase in popularity compared to jazz. Being able to appreciate the two dances on video we are able to contemplate some of the fundamental differences between the two. Tap dances makes use of the feet in order to produce rhythmic sound with special heel that tap shoes have, It is through this sound combined with accurate coordination that tap dance becomes what it is. On the other hand, jazz dance exhibits itself as a much more graceful dance that makes use of the feet as well, but involves synchronized graceful movements rather than coordinated short steps. Looking at the gender distribution for the two we find that tap has a somewhat equal distribution of males to females while jazz has a much greater number of females than males. The clothes worn for tap dance consist of somewhat classical fancy clothes from the 1950s while those used in jazz consist of more modern spandex and often black clothing. The clothes worn in jazz allow for the performers to move comfortably while performing movements that require a great amount of flexibility. The music for tap dance seems to be happy and in a way playful while in jazz the music seems to be elegant and sophisticated.

Analyzing the video on tap dance we can appreciate evident influences from old British and Irish tap dancing that was fairly similar but was not quite the style of tap dance. As for jazz dance, we observe that the main influence is evidently ballet dance as it reflects some of the movements in that genre. The presentation of tap dance is something similar to a performance that I saw in black and white at my high school of two individuals performing tap dance with long black sticks. Jazz dance, as aforementioned imitates some of the movements I had previously observed in ballet recitals. I firmly believe that tap and jazz brought in a wide audience because they extended more opportunities to people. This is especially true with slaves and jazz that became very fond of the jazz dance and made up a great number of the individuals that performed this dance. Both of these dances have created new movements and styles that have very much shaped how new dances are created and how others have drastically changed.